The Sister stared blankly at the beaming child. What manner of being was this that had been so strangely wafted into these sacred precincts on the night breeze! The abandoned woman who had brought her there, the Sister remembered, had dropped an equally cryptical remark––“She’s chock full of religion.”
But gratitude quickly mastered her wonder, and the woman, 19 pondering the child’s dramatic recital, murmured a sincere, “The Virgin be praised!”
“Oh,” said Carmen, looking up quickly as she caught the words, “you people up here talk just like those in Simití. But Padre Josè said you didn’t know, either. You ought to, though, for you have had so many more ad––advantages than we have. Señora, there are many big, clumsy words in the English language, aren’t there? But I love it just the same. So did Padre Josè. We used to speak it all the time during the last years we were together. He said it seemed easier to talk about God in that language than in any other. Do you find it so, Señora?”
“What do you mean, child?” asked the puzzled Sister. “And who is this Josè that you talk so much about?”
“He––taught me––in Simití. He is the priest there.”
“Well,” replied the Sister warmly, “he seems to have taught you queer things!”
“Oh, no!” returned Carmen quickly, “he just taught me the truth. He didn’t tell me about the queer things in the world, for he said they were not real.”
Again the Sister stared at the girl in dumb amazement. But the child’s thought had strayed to other topics. “Isn’t it cold up here!” she exclaimed, shivering and drawing her dress about her. “I guess I’ll have to put on these shoes to keep my feet warm.”
“Certainly, child, put them on!” exclaimed the Sister. “Didn’t you wear shoes in your country?”
“No,” replied Carmen, tugging and straining at the shoes; “I didn’t wear much of anything, it was so warm. Oh, it is beautiful down there, Señora, so beautiful and warm in Simití!” She sighed, and her eyes filled with tears. But she brushed them away and smiled bravely up at the Sister. “I’ve come here because it is right,” she said with a firm nod of her head. “Padre Josè said I had a message for you. He said you didn’t know much about God up here. Why, I don’t know much of anything else!” She laughed a happy little laugh as she said this. Then she went on briskly: